Geoffrey Manne in RedState: How Free is the Wireless Spectrum Market?

October 18, 2013

With spectrum auctions set to begin early next year, TF’s Geoffrey Manne has a guest article in RedState examining the debate over how and whether to limit the buying and aggregating of lower frequency (in this case 600 MHz) spectrum. He writes:

Defenders say that rigging the auction rules to benefit T-Mobile and Sprint will allow them to build out in rural areas to compete with AT&T’s and Verizon’s broader networks. But this is a red herring. They may get the spectrum, but they won’t use it to extend their coverage in rural areas; they’ll use it to add “depth” to their overloaded urban and suburban networks.

But for AT&T the need for additional spectrum is made more acute by the roaming deal, which requires it to serve its own customers and those of T-Mobile.

This makes clear the reason underlying T‑Mobile’s advocacy for rigging the 600 MHz auction – it is simply so that T‑Mobile can acquire this spectrum on the cheap to use in urban and suburban areas, not so that it can deploy a wide rural network. And the beauty of it is that by hamstringing AT&T’s ability to acquire this spectrum, it becomes more expensive for AT&T to serve T‑Mobile’s own customers!

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